


Reality: Justice Is Pain

by SaaviYB



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Dark, Implied Relationships, Mild Gore, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 22:22:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaaviYB/pseuds/SaaviYB
Summary: “You’re making a huge mistake! I swear to God I had no connection to those murders!” Kihyun screamed.The jury only looked at him with contempt. Of course they didn't believe him. Why would they?Kihyun stared at the wall, too shocked to cry yet too sad to focus. He was going to prison. For a crime he didn't commit.Or did he?





	Reality: Justice Is Pain

The metal was cold against Kihyun's head. He heard the safety click off. He couldn't stop the tears from flowing down his eyes. The fear choked him, gagged him. He was going to die here.

“Little bitch crying like a newborn baby,” Jisul said with an annoyed twitch to her face. “I'd think a man who spent some time in prison would've had that beat outta him.” With every other word she shoved the barrel of the gun deeper into his skull.

Kihyun couldn't respond.

Hyunwoo, tied up across from him, was staring off like he wasn't close to death. Like he wasn't in the same room with a woman hell-bent on destruction and emasculating every man she came across. They both could be next on her list.

In a blink of an eye she turned and pistol-whipped Hyunwoo. “What about you, rapist? Gonna cry because a woman has you tied up instead of the other way around?” She had the barrel up against his forehead. Blood trickled down the side of his head.

He looked at her, expression like newly made steel: perfect and hard. Like he was born for these sort of situations. “I don't know. Why don't you let me tie you up and see who cries then?”

Jisul whipped his head again. A deeper gash let blood flow over his eye. “Shut your fucking mouth. Men like you disgust me.”

Kihyun couldn't see her facial expression but her words cut him like a knife. It may have been directed at Hyunwoo but they held such scorn Kihyun felt it in his soul.

For the nth time he wished he hadn't escaped prison.

**{O • K}**

“You’re making a huge mistake! I swear to God I had no connection to those murders!” Kihyun screamed as the bailiff dragged him away from his seat. “I'm innocent!”

The jury only looked at him with contempt. Of course they didn't believe him. Why would they when the evidence so clearly made it known he had killed that family? Stabbed them all in their sleep then went to bed like nothing happened?

Kihyun stared at the wall, too shocked to cry yet too sad to focus. He was going to prison. For a crime he didn't commit.

Or did he?

**{O • K}**

The police man’s grip was like iron, hoisting Kihyun through the prison.

He didn't want to be here. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was innocent! Wasn't he?

The chinking of the iron bars made his eyes close. He didn't want to be here. It smelled like death, without the rotting corpse. It felt like torture.

He was pushed into the cell, the chinking returning him to the present. He wiggled his hands, now free to do so. At least he no longer had that itching metal against his wrists. But the fabric of his orange jumpsuit annoyed his skin.

“What are YOU here for?” A voice asked.

Kihyun turned toward the voice, a man on the bottom bunk. He was sitting on the edge, peering up at him. He had the typical bright danger orange jumpsuit, but his torso was covered by a black tank top. His hair looked like it needed a dye job, oddly bright ends with faded roots. Then Kihyun saw his arms.

He worked out. Frequently. He could snap Kihyun's body like a damn twig. And probably enjoy it.

“What are YOU here for?” He returned.

The man stood, face visible now in more detail. He had a pretty face, like an idol. Why was he here?

“What's it to you?” He said, a sneer on his attractive features.

_Kihyun you're gonna die on your first day here._

“You tell me, I tell you,” Kihyun negotiated. _Damn it I don't have the power to be stubborn in prison!_

The man was nose to nose with him, breathing even but faster than it should be. “I don't need to tell you a damn thing.”

“Then I don't need to tell you a damn thing.” Kihyun was basically challenging the devil, he knew; but he wasn't about to be someone's prison bitch. He'd heard stories. Being held in custody was an educational experience, at least.

Out of all things to do the attractive man smiled. It was more of a smirk but it was there. “I like you. But you're all balls, no brains.” His smile disappeared. He walked back to his bed, sitting down comfortably. “That's going to get you attacked, or worse, raped. Stick with me kid.”

“Why should I?”

The man sighed and shook his head. “Do yourself a favour and keep your mouth shut.”

Kihyun wanted to say something. Almost did. But the look on the man's face, told Kihyun he was dangerous. Kihyun zipped his lips. But God did he want to say _fuck you_.

**{O • K}**

Kihyun screeched as Jisul pistol-whipped him. “Tell me where the rest of them are!” She yelled.

“Fuck off!” Kihyun yelled back.

Another smack with the hard metal. “Don't talk to me like that!”

Kihyun tasted his blood as it ran over his lips. “I'll talk to you however I want.” He said dangerously. He couldn't look at her.

Hyunwoo spit out blood. The entirety of his face, on the left side, was covered in different layers of blood. Some dry, others freshly running over his cheeks. “You don't need to worry about them.”

Jisul snapped toward him. “Why?!”

He looked at her. “They're all gone.”

**{O • K}**

“Yah, Kihyun,” Hoseok yelled from across the courtyard.

Kihyun looked up from his book, seeing his “friend” walking up to him. Everyone gazed at him casually, the envy (and sometimes, most of the time, anger; or resentment?) obvious in their stares.

Hoseok was a well-liked inmate in the prison, guards very clearly preferring to deal with him than just about everyone else. He was easy-going, a broad smile betraying his surroundings. He acted soft, like he'd be someone's bitch. But underneath that jovial exterior was, as Kihyun liked to put it, ‘a disgusting-tasting crunchy center.’

“You sure you don't want to back out?” Hoseok asked quietly as he sat next to Kihyun. “We'll still take you with us.”

Kihyun closed the “book.” It wasn't an actual book. He was glad to no longer have to read the manual. “I want out, H… Wonho.”

“All of us do. Even the bad ones.”

“Yeah but the difference is I'm innocent.”

Hoseok laughed, like that was such a long-off wish. “If you stay long enough, you'll begin to think you belong here.”

“I don't plan on staying in prison for the rest of my life.”

“I don't want to stay, either.”

They both turned to see their “friend” Hyunwoo sitting next to them. He didn't say anything else. Very typical of the broad-shouldered male.

“I don't want too, either. But we lay low,” Hoseok continued, giving a nod to Hyunwoo. “Until the time is right.”

“Until then, we rack up favor. All seven of us.”

Kihyun and Hoseok nodded. They both knew what “racking up favor” meant.

**{O • K}**

Jisul shoved the pistol right into Hyunwoo's eye. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN «THEY’RE ALL GONE»?!”

Hyunwoo barely reacted. Just a small twitch of his face. “I watched them drive off. Like the criminals they are.”

“You son of a—!” Jisul bitch slapped Hyunwoo. “Don't fucking lie to me! You criminals all gather like thirsty animals to a watering hole! Fucking _men_ ,” she screeched with disgust. “This is why I became a—”

“You're just mad we're not gathered around you and drinking your water, bounty hunter,” Hyunwoo replied evenly, but it was coated in venom.

Her arm revved up and she bashed the crown of Hyunwoo's head. “Shut your mouth, filthy rapist! Fuck playing around with you.”

She pulls out a phone from her pocket. It's a burner phone. Of course she wouldn't have a real phone.

“Sanyu? Yeah, it's me—”

Then several sounds popped off at once.

**{O • K}**

“Why ARE you here?” Kihyun asked as he spotted Hoseok. The man's arms were an essential part of their plan.

He grunted as he lifted the two hundred pound weight. “Manslaughter. Three times. So I'm stuck here.”

“Manslaughter? Three times? How do you get convicted of manslaughter three times?”

“Cars. Alcohol. Being a passenger who's also drunk. That type of thing.”

“So drunk driving?”

“With extra circumstances.”

“Right.” Kihyun could tell he didn't want to talk about it anymore. “What about the rest of the 'team’.?”

“That's up to them to tell you. Well, except Hyunwoo. I'll tell you his story.”

“The other big guy? The one who would probably fuck everyone up given the chance?” Kihyun questioned. Hyunwoo was attractive like Hoseok, but quiet in a deathly stalker kind of way.

Hoseok scoffed. “You'd probably see him that way. But Hyunwoo's case is complicated.”

“Explain it to me.”

The next day at lunch, that's where Kihyun finally learned about his «team’s» individual cases.

“So, team, our new member Kihyun wants to know who did what. Spill,” Hoseok said confidently.

“Oh! Oh! I'll go first!” Minhyuk yipped with his arm in the air.

Kihyun and Minhyuk were probably the closest of the group, even if they fight a lot. Kihyun has spilled his guts before, but the rest of the group has kept silent. He's excited to finally hear why they're here.

“Okay so everyone knows I've stolen things before,” he starts. “Me and this gang I accidentally got involved with made a plan to rob a jewelry store. We did it. They didn't tell me I was just a sheep.”

“What does that mean?” Kihyun asked.

“It means they went free while I got time. Six years. I've only got two left.”

“But, I thought—”

“Mostly,” Hoseok says, already knowing his train of thought.

“Yeah, I'm one of two members who belong in prison.”

“You? I'm surprised you even made it this far,” Kihyun joked.

“Everyone loves me!” Minhyuk defended.

“Hyungwon?” Hoseok suggests.

“I was accused of stealing from my modeling agency. Boss didn't like me. After his failed accusations, someone found drugs in my bad. Lots of it. Without really giving a good explanation, despite being given a lie detector test, they sent me to spend thirteen years in prison. This is only my second year.”

“Do you know who stuck the stuff in your bag?” Kihyun asked, knowing that Hyungwon wasn't someone who would do drugs. It just didn't fit.

“No. Bastard,” Hyungwon said quietly.

“You did steal something!” Minhyuk said excitedly.

“What did I steal?!” Hyungwon snips.

“Their hearts!” The puppy said, with finger hearts pointing his way.

Hyungwon just facepalms, then looks at Hoseok. “Do we really need him?”

“Yes!” Hoseok responds. “Jooheon?”

“I was accused of hacking into the government's systems. While I am a hacker, I never did that. But in court the evidence never matters.” He got quiet after that.

“Changkyun?” Hoseok pokes gently.

Kihyun had heard rumors about what the youngest has done. But he never had the courage to talk to him, because he was so straight-faced it off-put Kihyun from the moment they met. He wanted to know the truth about him.

“I had a girlfriend. Loved her to the ends of the world. Would do anything for her. I did basically everything for her. Wanted to marry her and show her off to my parents. Wanted to start a family. But then…” He stopped dead, sighing heavily.

Jooheon, who was next to him, rubbed his back. “We're here for you, man.”

Changkyun sighed again. “One day, I began to suspect she was cheating on me. So…” Another sigh. “After a couple of months of doing some research, I finally caught her with another man. I just… snapped. Grabbed whatever was available and began stabbing him. Don't remember what I grabbed, I just grabbed something and wailed on him. I got fifteen to life.”

“How many years have you served?” Kihyun asked. He wasn't necessarily scared of the boy, but there was this wild look in his eyes from what Kihyun could see.

“Five.”

“How old are you, Changkyun?” Kihyun asked brazenly. He's learned it's not an appropriate question to ask in prison.

“I turned twenty-two this year.” That wild look was getting wilder.

“So you were… seventeen when you…” Kihyun didn't have the courage to say it.

“Sixteen. It happened before my birthday.” He eyes were no longer wild, but livid.

“Kihyun I'll tell you Hyunwoo's in the cell,” Hoseok said from across the table.

“Okay.”

“I enjoyed it.”

Kihyun looked toward the youngest in the group. They all did, even Hyunwoo.

“I enjoyed killing him. She was my girl. And when I get out I'll go find her. Tell her I love her.”

Back in the cells, at bedtime, Kihyun waited as Hoseok came back from the showers. He looked good as usual.

“So. Hyunwoo's story?” Kihyun questioned.

Hoseok sat down, and began the tale as old as time: he said, she said.

**{O • K}**

“Fuck,” Jisul hissed as both gunshots and glass breaking boomed around her.

“Must be a storm happening,” Hyunwoo said like a creepy man in an alleyway.

More gunshots, _pop pop pop_ , from all around them rang in the air. More glass shattered from rooms off the main hallway. Wood creaking from the entrance door. A figure slowly made its way to the threshold of the living area.

**{O • K}**

“You know how Hyunwoo was convicted as the North Coast Rapist right?” Hoseok started.

“Really? Hyunwoo?”

“Do you remember what that rapist did?”

“He raped and killed a lot of women?” Kihyun wasn't sure where this was going; he's heard of the North Coast Rapist beforehand, how he raped and murdered women on the edge of the Northern coast. He'd read that man had been put away a few years back.

“Yeah. Hyunwoo was convicted as the rapist five years back.”

Kihyun nodded.

“But Hyunwoo swore he wasn't the guy. But his DNA was found at all the crime scenes, despite him having alibis for some of those nights. But, «the DNA doesn't lie», as we're always told. So they arrested his ass.”

“God that must suck.”

“Recently, a string of rapes and murders have followed the same MO in the south. The cops and feds have labeled it as a copycat, but we know better. It's the rapist, being smart and moving down to not get caught.”

“So Hyunwoo is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, for something he didn't do?” Kihyun grimaced.

Hoseok laughed, low in his throat. “No.” Then he got closer. “Neither are we.”

**{O • K}**

Jisul swung the gun toward the figure. “Leave and I won't shoot.”

The figure steps up to be more in the light. And surprise, Kihyun can't believe his eyes.

“DUDE, I've always wanted to meet a bounty hunter!” Minhyuk exclaimed. He bounced around like an over-excited puppy.

“Nevermind, join us would you?” She says sweetly, a smile plastered to her face.

Minhyuk makes a sad face. “Aww, I'm sorry but I have to take them and leave! You understand, right?” He makes a pleading sound.

The bounty hunter's fake smile fades. “No. Get on the floor and I won't shoot you.”

“If that's the why it'll be,” Minhyuk starts out. He then gets into… a fucking kung fu pose. “THEN. GET. READY. FOR–” His arms begin to move wildly, up down, left right, up left diagonal, then he makes hooks with his hands. “MIN HYUK FU!”

A shot rings out, and Minhyuk screams. “You fucking bitch! You ruined my bit!” He grabs his leg, blood seeping through his fingers.

Kihyun screams. This was the first time he's actually heard a gunshot.

Suddenly the girl drops. Kihyun's eyes watch as she drops. He looks up to see a brick. There's someone on the end of it.

“W-w-wait, Hyungwon?” Kihyun questions.

“Yeah. I'm covered in soot but it's me. God I miss my modelling job,” he whispers but Kihyun hears it.

Kihyun sees another body drop from the chimney. It looks like… “Changkyun?!”

“Kyunnie, take the brick,” Hyungwon said as he handed out the heavy stone.

The youngest took it, rushing past Kihyun and slammed it into the bounty hunter’s head.

**{O • K}**

“I hate the taste in my mouth,” Kihyun complained to Hoseok and Hyungwon.

“We all do. They more they owe us, they more likely our escape will go smoothly,” Hoseok responded.

Kihyun hates the looks the guards give him when he passes them. But those looks were necessary. The taste in his mouth was necessary.

“And tonight, we ditch that feeling,” Hyungwon said happily.

Kihyun knew Hyungwon was right. He's been here a year. He wants out.

**{O • K}**

Kihyun tried his hardest not to look at the remains of the bounty hunter’s head.

“Come on Kihyun, I'll help you walk,” Hyungwon said. He grabbed his arm, putting it over his shoulders. “We gotta get out of here.”

Changkyun helped Minhyuk get situated on Hyunwoo's back, the youngest keeping an eye on them. It was quiet as they walked through the back toward the backdoor. They heard the chirping of birds, so peppy despite the location and the dead bounty hunter in the cabin. It was early morning, if the birds had anything to say about it.

Kihyun hasn't felt free since before the incident. It had to be two years ago. He remembers being down on his luck, going door to door to find a place to stay. A nice family took him in, he even inspired their daughter to take photography lessons. It was a blissful month.

Then he woke up from being lost in what was clearly a dream. Police accused him of murder, and he was sent to prison. What a sick and twisted turn of events.

A car was parked haphazardly in the woods. The cops would be able to track them, with the wide tire treads detailing which way they went. Kihyun hoped they had a plan besides escape prison, and besides hightailing the fuck out of Dodge.

The door opened automatically. Jooheon was driving, looking spooked, as per usual with him. “Yeah, some creepy ass cabin in the woods. Way to go, bounty hunter; totally not obvious you do your shit here,” he said with contempt. His eye roll was impressive.

But Kihyun was more concerned with someone else. “Hoseok! Fuck, are you okay?!” He clambered onto the backseat, legs still numb from being tied up so long.

Hoseok smiled, despite holding in a bullet wound on his side. “Hey, cutie,” he said with a weak wink.

“Don't «hey cutie» me! Where's the first aid kit?!” Kihyun yelled.

“He's already been taken care of,” Jooheon said as he pulled off. Everyone was in the van now, Hyungwon calling shotgun, himself next to Hyunwoo, and Minhyuk with Changkyun behind them. “You, Hyunwoo and Minhyuk need some serious TLC.”

“I'll get Hyunwoo!” Minhyuk said happily.

“Who'll get you, then?” Hyunwoo questions.

“I trust your strong hands,” Minhyuk said flirtatiously.

“Then I'll get you, Kihyun,” Changkyun snapped beside him.

Kihyun tried to conceal his fear as the youngest’s blood-soaked hands reached for his face.

**{O • K}**

Once more Kihyun was startled awake by the shifting of the van. He shook the sleep from his head, digging in the corner of his eyes for sand. It seemed like everyone was still asleep. Except for—

“Hyunwoo? Should you really be driving?” He asked the oldest.

“I'm fine. This is nothing like I'd received my first month in a high security prison.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“It's your turn to drive. Can you drive?” He asked, ever the visage of calm and serene.

“Y-yeah, I know how.”

“I wasn't asking if you knew how, I was asking if you can.”

“Yeah, I'm better than before.”

It was quiet as Hyunwoo drove a bit more, the seven of them still on a dirt road. They needed to find some place… for something, Kihyun was sure of it.

“Kihyun, I like you,” Hyunwoo suddenly said.

“Um, okay? I like you too?”

“I'll tell you a secret.”

“Yeah, I'm here to listen.”

“I'm glad to not have to act tough anymore.”

“I know, it's refreshing to be—”

“I'm not done.”

“O-okay, continue on.”

“You know that family you didn't kill?” Hyunwoo asked passively.

“Yeah. They were so good to me.” Kihyun hoped Hyunwoo had a point, bringing up that moment in his life hurt like a bullet to the chest.

“That was my birth family.”

**Author's Note:**

> God I hate the title.
> 
> I was flipping through channels and saw some things that had me randomly inspired. I've had this for like three months and am finally posting it. Mostly to clear up space XD


End file.
